


Pandoran Experiences

by Chargefire



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Dismemberment, Electrical Shocks, Eye Trauma, Gen, Gore, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2755523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chargefire/pseuds/Chargefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rudiger has a little chat with his favorite Hyperion employee. </p><p>(And by that, I mean Rudiger beats the hell out of Rhys. Have fun.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandoran Experiences

The bandit loomed over him and Rhys threw himself to the side, fingers grabbing at the patchwork metal with little success; it crumpled under his weight, and he fell, head striking the impacted sand with a rough thump. The observer, off to the side of the dirty Pandoran path, took the opportunity to press something metallic; and Rhys stared in confusion at the dirt and dirty Pandoran flora as his left eye blanked out, cutting his vision in half, with his right arm feeling like it was asleep. Willing the cybernetic arm to work like it usually should produced an effect like when he had held the fake Vault Key.

So it was an EMP. But why? Pandoran bandits didn’t usually have a procedure beyond “shoot first, and then loot your corpse.” As Rhys blurrily considered this, the bandit rolled him on this back and as Rhys kicked, flailing about, he leaned with most of his weight and began to pull on his robotic arm.

“H-h-hey! Get the fuck off me!” Rhys shouted, other arm ineffectually pushing at the bandit. “Stop! Okay, okay, shit, what do you want? Is it money? Listen, I’m not really-”

The observer began pacing toward Rhys and, as if to electronically kick him again, reactivated the EMP. Rhys’s eye and arm, which had been returning to functionality, ceased to work once again, cutting out. The other bandit placed his sandy brown boot to rest at an angle on his throat, heel touching the ground. Rhys stilled, mind coursing through options - fuck, where was his stun baton? - and breath picking up as he trembled.

The bandit lifted his mask up, face curling into an awful looking smile that slightly stretched his bullet tattoos. “Hey, Hyperion. You probably don’t remember me since you suits are all the same, but don’t think I don’t fucking remember you goddamn blasting me into a sign, you shitty Hyperion scum.” Oh.

Rhys gaped. “I-”

The other bandit began to angrily hit Rhys’s cybernetic arm, apparently frustrated at the lack of dismemberment that he had achieved. Because it was deadened from two consecutive EMPs and because of the way it was designed in the first place (detecting pressure mostly, except for his hand and fingers, which could detect a wider range), Rhys’s “ouch” was mostly reflexive.

“I tried to ask you for directions!” Rhys remembered, face contorting in disbelief and anger. “What the hell!?”

“So you do remember. Huh,” Rudiger said, and pulled some kind of rod from behind him. “Hey, asshole,” he said, nodding at the wailing bandit, who huffed and sat back down on Rhys’s stomach, knocking the wind from him. Rhys gasped, missing most of what Rudiger said next until there was a familiar buzzing sound - _that’s my stun baton, how the hell did they get it!?_ Rhys realized.

He felt a wave of panic crash over him, and he gasped more, trying to recover his breath. "So how much of you is robotic, huh, Hyperion?" Rudiger asked, idly tapping his foot against Rhys's neck. When Rhys said nothing, only breathing loudly and staring at the sparking stun baton, Rudiger scowled, pressing his boot down. Rhys scrambled, having mostly recovered from the blow to the solar plexus, left arm pushing at the boot with little strength. Rudiger rested his heel back on the sand and waved the baton at him, repeating his question.

Rhys swallowed, fearful, and responded: "Just- just my eye and arm," he said, voice cracking on the first word. "And my name isn't Hyperi-"

"I don't really care," Rudiger interrupted, and the other bandit moved, jumping up as Rudiger brought the baton down to Rhys's stomach. Rhys froze, mouth open slightly in what would have evolved to a scream if electric current hadn't been running through him. Rhys gasped as Rudiger lifted the baton up, sucking in air desperately, going mostly limp. 

“Please, just stop,” Rhys begged, body shaking, and Rudiger kneeled down, paying his words no attention and pushing Rhys’s vest up, trying to look at where Rhys’s arm met the shoulder. Rhys moved, rolling over and inadvertently whacking Rudiger with his metal arm; he scrambled to his feet, slower than usual, and glanced at his robotic arm before throwing a wide punch with it, aiming for Rudiger, who hadn’t seemed to expect Rhys to recover that quickly. The punch connected, and Rudiger spun backwards, baton dropping out of his hand a bit away before lilting upward, hand feeling his mask. With a grimace, he tossed the broken mask to the side, shards of it spreading into the sand upon impact.

The other bandit let out a yell and tackled Rhys, knocking them both to the ground, and Rudiger scrunched his face. “Fuck it. Just punch him,” he told the bandit, who shrugged and then proceeded to repeatedly punch Rhys in the face, blood flying and skin splitting on both sides. Rhys took the blows helplessly for a moment before trying to maneuver his robotic arm out from under the bandit, having evidently realized its strength. Rudiger rolled his eyes and pressed the EMP device again, and Rhys cried out before being silenced by another blow to the face.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough. I don’t wanna kill him yet,” Rudiger told the bandit, who shrugged and stopped, but making no move to get off of Rhys, keeping him pinned. Rhys hit the bandit with left hand, pushing frantically while blood dripped from his nose and a terrible headache squeezed his head, the beginnings of bruises splotching across his face. Rudiger crouched down, knocking his knuckles against the twitching robotic arm. He pulled a cleaver from his side and brought it down at the metal joint, a clang reverberating through the air.

“What- what are you doing!?” Rhys shrieked, flailing more until the other bandit punched him in the face again and he reeled back, head hitting the sand with a thud. 

Rudiger scowled and hit the joint a few more times, Rhys growing more panicked with each subsequent blow until the arm's joint began to open, revealing circuitry and wiring. Rudiger poked it with his cleaver and Rhys jerked, wincing. "Don't do that," Rhys moaned, lifting his head up from the ground. 

"And why not?" Rudiger asked, knocking the Hyperion-yellow arm with the flat side of his blade. "Actually, I don't care. Don't answer." He hacked at the wiring with more fervor until the arm fell limp and Rhys began to scream at Rudiger.

"Let go, let me go! Stop fucking with my arm!" he screeched, Rudiger only smirking and continuing with his task. He attacked where the arm met skin too, causing Rhys to shudder in pain as the cleaver sliced through metal, skin, and nerve connections. The metal kept responding to the blows, clanging and weakening until the knife cleaved through the metal and half of Rhys's robotic arm from the elbow down fell to the sand. Rhys stared in shock.

In a moment of bandit-style childish enthusiasm, Rudiger picked up the severed robotic arm and began to smack Rhys with it. "Why are ya hitting yourself?"

"Oh my god, please shut up," Rhys begged, waving his arm stump around and giving the other bandit a pleading look. The bandit shrugged. 

“Okay, time to get to business,” Rudiger said, and cracked his knuckles. Rhys’s eyes widened and he struggled, though unable to move from the bandit’s weight. 

“Move!” Rhys told the bandit, who looked bored and scratched at his head before shifting a bit. 

“Nah, man, I’m getting five bucks for this,” he told Rhys, who in turn gaped, mouth opening and brow scrunching in disbelief. 

“Just five dollars?” Rhys asked, sounding scandalized.

“Money’s money,” he replied.

Rudiger sighed and in a swift movement, brought his cleaver down next to Rhys’s ear, the blade sinking into the sand a bit and muffling its impact. Rhys shrieked and Rudiger laughed, tossing the robotic arm up in the air before catching it again. “Your little stunt in Prosperity Junction killed a lot of my friends,” he told Rhys, tone level but eyes murderous.

“I didn’t know that! I thought bandits just killed each other! Besides, all we wanted was directions. You guys tried to _murder_ us first!” Rhys argued, sweat sliding down the side of his face.

“Fuck you,” Rudiger snarled. “You know what, Dahl abandoning us in this shithole planet was bad enough, but fucking Hyperion did nothing to help us, just searched for fucking Eridium and fucking Vaults.”

Rhys blinked. “Okay, yeah, I mean... well...” he glanced around, train of thought stuttering to a halt. “I’m sure... there was a reason...?”

Rudiger kicked Rhys in the head, and Rhys reeled back onto the sand, laying still for a moment, only making gaspy, pained sounds. When Rhys had recovered enough to open his eyes, he opened his mouth again before pausing. As Rudiger picked up the cleaver again, throwing the robotic arm to the side, Rhys stuttered: “wait, wait, I didn’t- I didn’t do that, though! That’s executive decisions, I’m just an employee, okay?” _Probably not for much longer_ , he groaned to himself, wondering where the hell Vaughn was and why he wasn’t tracking him or _something_.

“Yeah,” Rudiger said, before nodding. “Except it’s like, I’m gonna kill you because of you being a Hyperion employee and also me just hating you. Besides, you’re Hyperion; you’re gonna have some good loot afterward. After you die, in case that wasn’t clear.”

Rhys shook and fervently wished someone would just come and rescue him already, oh god, please.

“So is the arm it or do you wanna smack him around more?” the bandit asked, yawning. “Cause I’m tired.”

“Nah. Not yet. I got an idea... Okay, you see his blue eye? Said it himself, that’s Hyperion tech. Let’s show what we do to Hyperion ‘round here,” Rudiger said, and then when the bandit didn’t respond, sighed and plainly said: “Okay, just gouge that eye out.”

“Eugh, I’m not doing that,” he said, crossing his arms. “That’s disgusting. Even a bandit’s gotta have standards-

“I’ll pay you five more dollars,” Rudiger interrupted, waving a 5 dollar bill at him.

“Deal,” he agreed immediately, snatching the money away while Rhys pounded his flesh arm in the bandit’s side, robotic one no longer working, trembling as he heavily sweated in fear. The bandit didn’t seem to notice.

“Y-you can’t do this, okay, please, my arm- my arm was bad enough, shit, it hurt, okay, it fucking hurt like hell but don’t,” he near-screamed, frantic and panicked as the bandit mimed weighing something in his hands before choosing his dominant right one and bringing it closer to Rhys’s blue eye. Rhys turned his head away from the hand, thrashing and screaming, eyes squeezed shut and heart pounding. 

“Well, what do I do now?”

“Christ, fine, I’ll hold his head still,” Rudiger said, and Rhys felt hands clasp the sides of his face, muffling what sound he could hear. There was nothing, and then there was pain.

His eye was on fire, oh god, he could _feel_ it squishing under the bandits thumb, and Rhys screamed, pissing himself. _Oh god oh god oh god_.

 _Alert_ , the cool Hyperion voice said, _this Echo-Eye Implant is in dang- urhgk shhhhhh-_ and cut off, distortion ending as soon as it began.

And then the bandit slumped over, and Rhys was dimly aware of something warm spilling all over him, and he stopped screaming, but the finger was still in his eye, it was there, he wasn’t moving but it was still there-! 

Rhys passed out.

There was a shout, and the sound of bullets hitting a shield, and then someone cursing followed by a quick engine starting and a car blasting away. 

“Jeez, Rhys, first the whole “can’t choke a bandit thing” and now “kidnapped”? Pretty pathetic,” a familiar voice joked. “Come on, let’s... get...” Sasha paused, taking in the scene but not comprehending.

“Come on, help him up!” Vaughn said, standing nervously to the side. Sasha frowned as she began to pull the dead bandit off Rhys. Sasha gasped at the sight of Rhys: robotic arm missing with one half thrown to the ground, the right side of his face dripping blood from his mutilated, distorted socket, bruises all over his face, blood covering his chest area from where the bandit had bled out, and a wet-looking spot near his crotch. It smelled.

Fiona snarled. “That asshole got away,” she called, tucking her gun away. “Hey, what’s up with you guys? Is he okay?”

Vaughn trembled, laughing weakly in shock, and then promptly bent over and vomited.

“Whoa, what’s gotten into you? Bad skag meat?” she asked, brow furrowing. When Sasha didn’t make any sort of sound, she turned and gaped, grimacing at the sight. “Oh my god,” she said, a little unsteadily, kneeling down to try and help Rhys up. “Rhys? Rhys, are you awake?” she asked, lifting him so he was at least sitting. She grimaced at the blood but felt for a pulse. “Fuck, okay, he’s alive, I think he’s passed out. I- shit, we- we have to get him to the caravan.”

Sasha stared at the sight, not moving until Fiona called her name. “Oh, uh, sorry!” she said tightly, and helped lift Rhys up. Vaughn followed, shaking and wiping his mouth as they headed back.

**Author's Note:**

> i got this idea bc when rhys is kidnapped by the stranger his echo-eye implant is gold and his robotic arm is silver, but in the flashbacks his eye is blue and his arm is yellow. hmmmmmmmmmm Suspicious
> 
> anyway jack is mr not appearing in this fic even though he should probably be since its set vaguely after the first ep but let's just say the emp caused jack to not show up
> 
> EDIT: holy shit im totally psychic, this fic had someone's eye getting gouged out & someone hitting rhys with his arm and saying something like "haha you're hitting yourself" way before ep 2 came out. telltale hire me  
> also obviously... this is definitely AU now


End file.
